Entre memória, identidade e legitimação : a construção da narrativa política russa sobre a “operação militar especial” na Ucrânia (2021-2024)

Abstract

In February 2022, after a long period of tension, the Russian Federation launched the so-called “special military operation” in the ukrainian territory, in the Donbass region. Among the central arguments used by president Vladimir Putin to justify the intervention is the defence of the people residing in Donetsk and Lugansk, who shared a common cultural heritage with Russia. However, the mobilization of this element, along with themes such as tradition, culture, values and unity between the people of both countries, can be observed recurrently in the Russian political narrative over the years. Given this, the present work seeks to understand: in what way Russian official speeches and documents retrieved ideational elements and shared history to legitimize the 2022 “special military operation” in Ukraine? Therefore, through the technique of content analysis with a qualitative approach of a descriptive-interpretative nature, the research analysed the mobilization of these elements in the official documents and speeches of the Russian Federation, from 2021 to 2024, and the way in which these topics were instrumentalized to legitimize the actions taken by the Russian government before national and international audiences.